Lifeless
by mystlyx
Summary: Helena Ravenclaw ruminates...


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

**Lifeless**

As she floats upright in the Ravenclaw common room by the fire, oblivious to all the students around her, Helena Ravenclaw can't help brooding over the state of her existence – if you can even call it that - and how she ended up where she is.

She stares into the flames, thinking of her mother. All the resentment, all the hatred, all the jealousy. It's all faded away. She feels nothing now. It was all pointless. But she doesn't regret it, no, she'll never regret it.

She thinks of her father, brave and strong and madly in love with her crazy mother his entire life. She can't help the fond, affectionate feelings she still feels for him. He had to deal with her mother. And he didn't even understand half the craziness. As a muggle, he had only discovered magic when he married Rowena. He hadn't known what he was getting himself into. And once married, trapped in awe of his wife's beauty, he could never leave her. He never stopped trying to understand, trying to make it work - he never gave up. And that is one of the qualities Helena admired the most about him. He was the only person she ever looked up to, ever respected. The only person she ever loved.

She thinks of the baron. The foolish man who fell in love with her. The foolish boy who thought he could woo her all those years ago. Who thought she would jump into his arms and serve him blindly and love him. _Ha_, she thinks. She could never love someone so haughty, so self-centered. Someone who thought the world revolved around him. He could never understand – to be married to her, to love her, he would have to change his whole mindset. His world would have to change its focus to revolve wholly around her. And she knows he couldn't do it, no matter how many times he promised he would. He was handsome, she vaguely remembers. Now, he is nothing to look at. Covered in blood, hunched over, he does nothing, says nothing. She avoids him as best she can.

She thinks of the diadem. That stolen tiara, so beautiful, so magical. Once it became hers, she kept it with her all the time, sewn into the inside of her dress. She laughs to herself, remembering how easy it was. Her mother had never dreamed her own daughter would defy her and try to steal it. Rowena had never imagined there was anyone equal to her, anyone able to match her in cleverness and magical ability combined. Oh, how she wrong she was...

A simple _expelliarmus _was all it took to steal it when her mother's back was turned. And a ride on a thestral was all it took to get out of Scotland. She'd always wanted to visit Albania...

She remembers living quietly, hiding her magic, in the city of Drach, finding herself a simple job as a maid in the household of one of the wealthiest families in the town. She remembers the peacefulness, the continuity of it all. She never minded the work or the anonymity. She remembers reveling in the chance to make a name for herself by her own merit, rather than the merit of her mother.

She always was a proud woman.

She remembers That Day, sitting by the fire, spinning wool, and hearing the other maids whisper excitedly as they peered out the window. She never really picked up the language, but she remembers understanding well enough when they motioned for her to come to the window to see the handsome Scottish gentleman climbing out of a wagon in front of the house. She remembers watching with interest, and she remembers that interest turning to shock and anger when the gentleman turned his head and she caught view of his face. The other maids had giggled incessantly at what they thought was a daring attempt by a maid to speak to a gentleman when Helena had gasped and raced down the stairs to meet him at the door.

Whatever the baron had been expecting when he arrived at that house, it was not an insignificant, dirty little maid storming out of the house to shout at him in his own language. She remembers his shock when he realized who she was, his disgust at how she had degraded herself, his disbelief when she refused to return to Hogwarts with him...

A couple of students look up in surprise when they hear Helena laugh out loud as she remembers the baron ranting and raving and trying to explain to her employer that Helena was a great Scottish lady and that she had run away and that he must bring her back to her home _at once_. She remembers running from the house in fury, leaving her things behind, desperate to get away from him.

She remembers hiding out in the forest for a few days, hungry and weak, but resolved not to seek help. She remembers the day the baron finally found her in her pitiful state. How furious he was, how silly he looked, still dressed in his travel clothing, all muddy and torn from the days spent searching for her. She remembers the look in his eyes, that terrible, insane leer, the horrible laugh, when he threw up his arms in exasperation and fury, and when he took out his knife and stabbed her. She remembers dying, hearing his wail rent the air as he realized what he had done, while the life slowly seeped out of her, while the colors started to blur and the sounds began to blend into nothingness.

She remembers the pain.

And she remembers the terror. Hitting her in the very last moment. The fear of what was to come. The fear of life after death. She remembers fighting with every last inch of what will she had left... and she remembers succeeding and failing all at once, when she successfully avoided the afterlife and when she failed in bringing herself completely back to the living.

But she doesn't need to remember what came next. It is the same stagnant, eternal feeling, the hopelessness of avoiding both life and death, that she feels now. Sometimes she'll feel triumphant at evading judgment, of denying some other being the decision of her fate. But most of the time she hates herself and wishes she hadn't done it, wishes she could die all over again and this time let the process fully complete itself and then at least she would have _some_ purpose rather than this pointless, endless existence in limbo.

She hates the fact that she's stuck hating herself forever.

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